Tag: Recipes

Ever have those weeks where you are just bored of everything you usually eat? That has definitely be me lately! I’ve been all about the new recipes and this week’s meal prep is no exception! I can’t wait to share all of these foods with you!

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to share recipes with you for some of them just yet….I am still testing them out, so it will be a bit!

Next up, a pan roasted veggies and chicken sausage dish and a couple styles of burrito bowls. These turned out well, but still need some tweaking before I’m ready to share the recipe! Here are a couple similar style dishes that I’ve made before and loved!

For our snacks and sides this week, I tried some new things as well! Along with my Healthier Cinnamon Bread and our protein balls (recipe will finally be posted later this week!!), I made some peanut butter and banana roll-ups and a turkey pinwheel. I should have the recipes for those for you next week!

That’s it for this week! You can try out the two main dishes that I had recipes for and download your grocery list for them here:

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I know this week’s meal prep was pretty short (and a day late….) but I hope you will bear with me! Hopefully I will have plenty of new recipes ready to share with you soon!

Are you ready for this week’s meal prep?! I have been looking forward to sharing it with you ALL WEEK! Not only was this prep super simple and inexpensive to throw together, but it also is delicious and flavorful! I’ve really been in the mood for new foods right now, so there are a couple new recipes in here too!

Enjoy!

To start things off, our one repeat recipe – Slow Cooker Italian Red Pepper Chicken. Y’all, I seriously love this recipe. Not only is it super flavorful, but there are so many ways to eat it! Over rice or noodles, with scrambled eggs, in a sandwich or wrap or even on it’s own! No matter how you eat it, it’s gonna be tasty. This week Draz and I both seemed to be into the wraps, so that is mostly how we had them. I love putting a bit of shredded mozzarella in with it!

So. Good.

Ok, on to one of our new recipes! Kale and Cauliflower Soup. This ended up being my lunch every day and it was so tasty! While I am a big fan of eating meat, this soup was hearty enough that I didn’t even notice it’s absence. Add to it being super quick to put together and it is definitely on the “make again” list!

The only real change I made was that I used chicken stock instead of vegetable, since that is what I had on hand.

A word of caution though….

So, in my flow of cooking, I forgot one essential rule while I was making this soup. When blending hot soups, you really should only fill halfway. Also, you should take the cap off of the lid and cover with a towel to allow steam to escape.

Did I do either of these things? Nope!

Not only that, I couldn’t figure out right away why this explosion of hot soup happened….so I poured some back into the pot and proceeded to try again. Only to have it explode again! Yup, I was that person. So, if you like to blend soups to thicken them up like I do, make sure you don’t forget that rule haha!

And on to less-explosive dishes….our other main dish this week was a cabbage and chicken sausage saute. I didn’t really follow a recipe on this one, since it was mostly planned to use up extra ingredients.

For this particular saute, I used

cajun chicken sausage

broccoli (1 medium head)

cabbage (roughly 3 c chopped)

onion (1 medium)

mushrooms, sliced (8 oz)

seasonings, mainly garlic and some red pepper flakes

Overall it turned out great! I do wish that I would have had more cabbage on had to bulk it up a bit, but it was delicious!

We opted to try out the noodle bowls again with a slightly different mixture. This one had

thin spaghetti

kale

mixed frozen vegetables

shredded carrot

a spice mixture of curry bullion and garlic chili paste – I lessened this compared to last week and I think I need to find the in-between of these two weeks spices. I will be experimenting and let you know!

That’s pretty much it for this week! Want to give it a try for yourself? Get this week’s meal prep grocery list here –

After my trip to Las Vegas, I was definitely ready for a food-reset! Am I the only one who finds it crazy that it was hard to eat healthy during a fitness conference? So when I got back, I knew I wanted to make sure that my meal prep for the coming week were packed with veggies!

Sadly, I didn’t get to enjoy it quite as much as I would have liked, since I ended up spending most of the week fighting off a minor flu. But that is okay! I got to experiment with some new recipes and I was able to save most of the prep that didn’t get eaten. The other plus side: Even while I was sick and had just gotten back home a few days before, I didn’t have to worry at all about what Draz was going to take for lunch or anything like that! Meal prep really can save you so much stress.

Enjoy!

For snacks, I changed things up a bit. Before I left on my trip, I got some really delicious local ground mustard that I love to use as a dip. So I cut up some veggies to have as a snack to go with it! A couple of the days I ended up taking some pretzels to dip in it too. Have you ever used mustard like that? It’s delicious!

For me, I made some burrito bowls inspired by this recipe, some garlic-y zucchini noodles (still working on the recipe for this one) and the One-Pot Cabbage Veggie Saute I shared with you yesterday! Overall, everything turned out great! With me getting sick, I ended up putting a bunch of the cabbage dish in the freezer, so I guess we will get to see how well that recipe freezes!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a lovely week! I know I did, and that was in part to having this delicious meal prep to enjoy every day when I got home! As you might remember from last week’s post, things have been a bit stressful here. Having our meals taken care of is one less thing that I have to worry about. That I got to try 2 new recipes this week that both turned out AMAZING just makes things even better.

Enjoy!

Nothing really new about our snacks and my salads. I am really loving these new-ish snacks right now, though I might look at adding to them soon! For right now, I’m just sticking to these Quinoa Omelette Bites and No-Crust Pizza Bites. And these salads are quickly becoming my new favorite! I think I’ve almost gotten them just the way I like them, so keep tuned for an upcoming recipe post 🙂

The real excitement this week is the main dishes. Draz asked for more Skinny Chicken Enchiladas, so those got added to the list. But with all the change-ups happening, I thought I would have some fun and try a couple new recipes. Both of these are really quick and easy to make, which makes them even more perfect for meal prep!

First up, Slow Cooker Chicken Curry. This was so easy to toss into the slow cooker and go about the rest of my prep. I cooked it for about 6 hours and then just shredded the chicken instead of cutting it up. It worked perfectly! This curry even got Draz’s approval, which doesn’t happen often! He likes curry but is more particular about it than I am. This one is being added to our “make again” list!

The other new dish of the week was Healthy Baked Chicken Italian Sausage and Peppers. Now, while I enjoyed the curry a lot, this one was my favorite this week! SO tasty! I used 2 packages of Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage that had 4 links each, and roughly 4-5 bell peppers. This ended up being put on 2 sheet pans, which worked out perfect. I love how simple, yet flavorful this dish is and we will definitely be having this one again soon!

For both of the new dishes, Draz had his with brown rice and I had mine with riced cauliflower. I’m really loving that frozen riced cauliflower I mentioned in last week’s post. I can honestly say I will probably be having this one a few times a week for the foreseeable future!

Hey everyone! I am so excited to share this week’s meal prep with you! This week’s meal prep was all about the healthy comfort food and it couldn’t have come at a better time. While it didn’t start out this way, the week ended up being a surprising and stressful one. I was very happy to have these filling high protein meals to enjoy when I got home each day!

So why was this week surprising and stressful? Well….it was decided rather unexpectedly that I will be going to part-time at my regular job. And while I have been hoping to make the move to part-time by the end of the year, I was not planning on it happening quite so soon. Or with such little notice. I did have the option to remain full-time, but it would have required a major schedule shift that neither Draz or myself thought was the best option.

I’m actually pretty excited about it and what it could mean for both my blog and for my jewelry business! But change is stressful, so this week wasn’t the easiest. And it’s week’s like this that make me so glad I do meal prep. I know I say this regularly, but it really did make all the difference this week! I didn’t sleep the best most days from the stress and things were pretty busy around here working to figure things out. So not having to think or worry about what we were going to eat any given day was a relief. Add in that all three main dishes this week were very comfort-foody and, well, it just helped things out a lot!

Enjoy!

Our snacks this week were pretty basic. Neither Draz or I needed protein balls, so all I had to make up was the other snacks. I tried something a little different with the No-Crust Pizza Bites this week. Instead of 3 slices of Canadian bacon per muffin tin, I cut it down to 2. I think this worked a lot better to make the bites “sink” into the tin while they were cooking and made them hold together much better. I will definitely be doing it that way in the future!

These breakfast burritos are a staple in our home! Tasty and filling, they are our favorite breakfast. Pair with some healthy homemade cinnamon bread and cottage cheese and you have a breakfast that will start your day off right!

These breakfast burritos are a staple in our home! Tasty and filling, they are our favorite breakfast. Pair with some healthy homemade cinnamon bread and cottage cheese and you have a breakfast that will start your day off right!

Brown sausage over med-high heat in a large skillet. When sausage is almost cooked through, add bell pepper and onions. Saute until tender. While sausage is cooking, beat eggs and any desired seasonings together.

Once sausage and veggie mixture is cooked, add egg mixture. Cook, stirring regularly, until eggs are almost set. Add cheese and salsa; cook 2-3 minutes or until cheese is melted and eggs fully set. Remove from heat and allow to cool, 10-15 minutes.

Once mixture is cooled, spoon into tortillas and fold into a burrito. Wrap in cling wrap (my preference) or aluminum foil.

Recipe Notes

Our burritos have two sizes. Mine have 1/3 c filling wrapped in a FlatOut wrap. Draz's have 2/3 c. filling wrapped in a larger (burrito-size) white tortilla. This recipe usually makes 30 burritos in total, 15 of each size. If you are just making the smaller burritos, it should make roughly 54 burritos.

To Heat: Remove from freezer and allow to thaw overnight. Heat in microwave 1.5-2 minutes, flipping once. (You can heat straight from the freezer, but I find it's harder to heat evenly that way)

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For our main dishes this week, we had Jambalaya, Skinny Chicken Enchiladas and Healthy One-Pan Baked “Smothered” Chicken! I love all of these so much I don’t even know if I can say I had a favorite this week! The jambalaya is adapted from a family recipe and has been one of my comfort foods for a long time. And I love this healthier version of it I’ve been making for the past year or so!

Jambalaya

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This is one of the first recipes I learned to cook and one of my favorites still!

Servings

Prep Time

10people

15-20min

Cook Time

Passive Time

50min

25 min

Servings

Prep Time

10people

15-20min

Cook Time

Passive Time

50min

25 min

Jambalaya

Print Recipe

This is one of the first recipes I learned to cook and one of my favorites still!

Return sausage and chicken to the pot. Add stock and bay leaf. Increase heat to med-high and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Cook 25 min; remove from heat. Let stand, covered, for 10 min. Remove bay leaf and stir in green onions to serve.

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For the Enchiladas, I made a couple small changes:

I didn’t measure out the chicken, but it was roughly 1.25 lbs. I didn’t change any of the rest of the chicken mixture. It ended up being 11 enchiladas, with 1/3 cup filling in each.

For my enchiladas, I used Light FlatOut wraps instead of tortillas. They worked great! For Draz’s I used regular flour tortillas.

For the Smothered Chicken, I didn’t change anything to the recipe itself. However, I did make an exciting change to how I served it! Draz’s portions were with brown rice, but mine were with a delicious cauliflower rice! Now, I know, I’ve made cauliflower rice on here before. And that is the new thing….I didn’t make it! I ended up impulse buying some frozen prepared Bird’s Eye Riced Cauliflower with Roasted Garlic and I am so glad I did!

Guys, this stuff is delicious! I have struggled with making cauliflower rice for months now. I would make it and be pretty disappointed with it each time. It was fine…it just wasn’t working for me as a rice substitute. But this?! This totally works for me! I can honestly say I don’t even noticed the difference. While I usually am all about making things fresh, this is definitely going to be the exception for me!

Here is this week’s macros breakdown!

Want to make this week’s meal prep for yourself? Get your downloadable grocery list here!

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That’s it for this week! What have you tried recently that surprised you, like the frozen riced cauliflower did me? What is your favorite healthy comfort food? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Hey guys! Are you as ready for spring as I am? I know that technically it’s already spring, but it sure hasn’t felt like it! I think that the “missing spring” thing definitely influenced this week’s meal prep. Stir-fry, for me, always makes me think of veggies and spring-time goodness. The funny thing is, I didn’t actually even realize that all 3 dishes were stir-fry until I sat down to write this! So I guess that tells you how observant I was this past week haha!

This week’s meal prep dishes were pretty delicious regardless. Like last week, this week was kinda split into “food for Draz” and “food for me.” But that’s ok! Sometimes it just works out that way.

I’m still making these Cinnamon Vanilla Protein Bites for myself and loving them! I don’t know if I mentioned it last time, but I did have the issue of them being a bit on the dry side when I first made them. Did you try them and have that issue to? Anyways, I figured out a solution guys! Just add a splash of unsweetened plain almond milk to the mix! It works great and they were much easier to form into balls.

For our main dishes this week, I made two of our favorites for Draz and a new recipe for me! For Draz, I made the Thai Peanut Chicken Pasta and Cabbage Sauteed with Chicken. Both of these are so good, though Draz’s favorite will probably always be the Thai Peanut Chicken Pasta. I did forget that I usually double that one, so we did end up a little short on food later on throughout the week.

For me, I made this Sweet and Sour *Tofu Peppers Broccoli. Now, the original recipe calls for chickpeas, but I was trying to lower the carbs, so I decided to try cooking with tofu for the first time! Because of this being my first time cooking with tofu, I’m not sure if that is what caused my overall reaction to this dish….which is kinda “eh”? It wasn’t bad, but I don’t know that I would make it again in it’s current form. I also cut the sugar in the sauce in half, but honestly I liked the sauce, do I don’t think that was the problem. I might try making this dish again with chickpeas and see how I like it then!

As always, here is this week’s macros breakdown!

Want to try this meal prep yourself? Get your grocery list with all the main dish ingredients here:

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That’s it for this week! Have you tried cooking with tofu before? Any tips for a newbie? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Hey everyone! I’ve been pretty excited to share this week’s meal prep with you! For the first time in quite a while, I’ve done some major changes to my snacks and I think you are going to love these new recipes!

Enjoy!

For this week’s snacks, I actually decided to switch things up a bit! I’ve been tracking macros for a few months now and hitting my daily protein is hard. Especially if I don’t want to go over on carbs or fat! So I’ve been searching a TON for new snacks and these are a few that I found! (Isn’t Pinterest the best?)

These No-Crust Pizza Bites are so tasty! I couldn’t get them to “sink” into the muffin tins as much as I would have liked, but I think that might just need some practice. But tasty-wise? They are SO good! Definitely going to be making these ones again.

Another new snack of the week are these Quinoa Omelette Bites. Guys…these are so good. Seriously. Super easy to make, macros-friendly and worked perfectly as my second snack of the day! Plus they are just as good cold too, which works great for me at when I’m at work.

Now for the last new snack of the week! I’m honestly not surprised at all to love these Cinnamon Vanilla Protein Bites. They aren’t the first ones I’ve tried from Cotter Crunch and they are always delicious! I can’t wait to make them again, especially after I get some vanilla protein powder.

For the salads and the rest of the snacks, things were pretty standard. I decided to switch back to my normal Buffalo Chicken salads for this week, plus Draz’s favorite protein balls and, as always, my grapes with cheese!

Our new dish for the week was this Bacon and Cheese Crockpot Quiche. Now, I love pretty much everything breakfast-related, so this was an easy decision! Plus it’s in the slowcooker, which makes it even better! Now, I know the picture doesn’t look the best. This was my first time baking turkey bacon and well….I overdid it a bit, but it still tasted pretty good. Lesson learned for next time – bake for a lot less time!

Other than sightly overdone bacon, this dish turned out wonderful. I will definitely be making this one again! I will say, I will probably split it into 6 servings next time instead of 8. The servings were a little on the small side for us.

I also made up a bunch of our breakfast burritos and ended up making some extra with the leftover bacon. I don’t think it will be part of our normal ones, but was a nice switch-up!

Tracking macros? Here is the breakdown for this week!

Want to make this week’s main dishes for yourself? Get your free downloadable grocery list here!

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What are your favorite high protein snacks? I’m still looking for new ones and would love to hear yours, so please leave a comment below!

Hey everyone! Before we get going, I want to talk a bit about meal planning for your prep. This week really reminded me of how important it is to build up a list of recipes you really like! While some weeks you might feel inspired or be craving something in particular, there are going to be weeks where nothing sounds particularly interesting. For those weeks, having your list of go-to recipes helps so much!

This week was one of the uninspired weeks for me. I had a really hard time making my plan for this meal prep. Draz didn’t have any requests this week and nothing was coming to mind that I really wanted for the coming week. Enter Pinterest! This is seriously my favorite tool ever for meal prep. I’ve been menu planning for years and for the majority of it I didn’t use Pinterest. It was all cookbooks, printed off recipes and the occasional Internet search. Now though? When I’m stuck, I just go to my “Recipes Made and Loved” recipe board and pick from there! It’s so much easier. If you haven’t started using Pinterest for your own meal prep planning, I highly recommend it.

And now, on to this week’s meal prep! Enjoy!

This week’s meal prep was super quick and tasty, plus being pretty budget-friendly too. I don’t know how you can get more of a overall win than that!

I hadn’t made Sweet Potato Banana Bites in a while and I forgot just how much I love them! They are such a dessert-type snack, but still healthy and made with wholesome ingredients. One of the first things I made when I started meal prepping, they have been a favorite of mine for over 2 years now! I also whipped up some more protein balls for Draz, some cinnamon bread for our breakfast, and more Cheeseburger-inspired jar salads! Overall, not a bad set up for our snacks and my lunches for the week.

For our main dishes, I made Slow Cooker Roasted Red Pepper Chicken Chili and Easy Skillet Chicken Cacciatore. I also altered this Kielbasa Hash. Our two chicken dishes both turned out delicious! That chili is still our favorite one and it just makes me happy every time I eat it. Plus is so easy to make and macros-friendly! The chicken cacciatore turned out well, though I kinda wish I had thought to make some rice or pasta to go with it….so much sauce!

For the Kielbasa Hash, I am so happy with how this one turned out! I was honestly a little hesitant about using sweet potatoes. Other than the sweet potato banana bites, I haven’t found many recipes that really make me love sweet potatoes. But this one definitely does! The only change up I made was sweet potatoes for potatoes. Otherwise, I followed the recipe!

I have a serious obsession with all things breakfast foods and this one is by far one of my favorites. Peppers, onions, turkey sausage and potatoes, all combined with fried egg? Perfection! I will admit, this one is a little higher in fat than I would prefer, but it was well worth it! If you are wanting to cut a little of the fat, you could probably forgo the eggs on top. (Which would be crazy and sad, but you could do it!)

Speaking of macros, here are the macros for this week’s meal prep!

Want to join in and make this meal prep for yourself? Get your grocery list here!

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And that’s it for this week! What are you making for your meal prep this week? Any delicious sweet potato recipes? I would love to hear about them, so please leave a comment below!

Hey everyone! Can you believe we are into March already? It seems like this year is just flying by! I am definitely ready for spring though. Iowa has been all over the place with temperatures lately and I just can’t wait until the warm weather gets here!

I don’t always follow seasonal when I’m cooking or cook lighter dishes in the warmer months like some do. However, I think I can see my desire for spring in this week’s meal prep! Lighter dishes and veggies everywhere! Enjoy!

For my salads, I’m still totally in love with these cheeseburger-insprired salads based off of this recipefrom Organize Yourself Skinny! The main changes I made:

no cucumbers, added in red onion

dressing was Bolthouse Farms Honey Mustard

used a salad mix instead of romaine

And for our snacks we have a recent favorite: 5-Ingredient Banana Bread Muffins! These are so tasty and really hit my desert cravings 🙂 Of course, my favorite, grapes and cheese, was also made. This week’s cheese? Smoked Gouda! I am loving the flavor of this one right now!

We were also running low on my Healthier Cinnamon Bread, so of course that was made. If you haven’t checked it out lately, there have been a couple small changes to the recipe. I’ve lightened things up a little more by cutting back on the sugar. It’s still plenty tasty, but a little more carb-friendly! We were also running low on Freezer Breakfast Burritos, so a 2-week batch of those got made up too!

For our main dishes this week, we have a couple new recipes! To start with, these Broccoli Quinoa Cheddar Bites are delicious! I love finding new vegetarian dishes, especially since we can be kind of a meat-heavy household. This one will definitely be made again! I did make a small change: The recipe calls for them being made in a mini-muffin pan. Instead I made them as regular muffins and baked them at 350 for 30 minutes. This worked out great! I also used Fiesta blend cheese instead of cheddar, since that was what we had on hand.

The other new recipe, and my personal favorite of the week, was this Ham and Cauliflower Chowder based off of this recipe from Damn Delicious. The original recipe sounded, well, damn delicious, but I wanted to lighten things up a bit plus add in more meat than the original called for. I think it turned out pretty great and I will definitely be making it again!

In a large skillet, heat grapeseed oil and butter on medium-high heat. Season chicken breast with salt and pepper to taste. Saute chicken for about 15 minutes, 7-8 on each side. Remove from heat, cover and let rest, until chicken is cooked through. Remove from pan and cut into bite-size pieces.

Using the same skillet, add minced garlic and cook over medium heat for 30 seconds or until garlic is fragrant, scraping chicken bits from pan. Add steamed broccoli and mix; remove from pan.

Add evaporated milk to the same skillet and heat to boiling. Add mozzarella cheese and stir until melted and creamy. Reduce heat and slowly add almond milk in, stirring constantly. Simmer until desired consistency is reached.

Add pasta, broccoli and chicken back to the skillet and mix. Season with more salt and pepper if desired.

Hey everyone! I don’t know about you, but I think the New Year energy is still keeping me super motivated right now! The great thing about this week’s meal prep? It works perfectly for that! Pretty quick to make, budget friendly and fit pretty well within my macros too!

Enjoy!

This week’s lunches and snacks were pretty basic! One thing that has been changing lately? The salad dressing I’m using! I am having a lot of fun trying out new ones right now, all from Bolthouse Farms. This week’s is a Carmelized Sweet Onion Yogurt Dressing and is delicious!

The other thing I’m loving right now? These new 5-Ingredient Banana Bread Muffins! They are so tasty and fit pretty nicely as a treat for my macros, at least sometimes 🙂 Our other main treat for this week was my favorite Sweet Potato Banana Bites! They taste like a dessert, but are much healthier.

For our main dishes, I picked a household favorite and a new one this week! The household favorite: Thai Peanut Chicken! Draz was very happy about that and so was I. This is still one of our favorite meals and I love how easy it is to prepare too! The only changes I usually make to this recipe:

chow mein noodles instead of thin spaghetti

I use more cabbage. Usually around 4 cups instead of 2

For the new dish, I picked this Slow Cooker Paleo Jalapeno Popper Chicken Chili. Now, the recipe calls for a mixture of chicken and ground beef, along with sweet potato. I used all ground turkey and a russet potato. The potato part was fine. For the meat, I have to say that the original recipe probably had it right! This turned out ok, but probably not nearly as tasty as the original recipe would have. Sometimes that happens when you play around with recipes, trying to make them healthier! So for the grocery list this week, I have included the original recipe’s ingredients instead of my substitutions.

Want to follow along for your own meal prep? Download your grocery list for this week’s main dishes here:

Have you ever tried to substitute ingredients, only to realize that the original was probably better? Ever done it and made the recipe even better? I would love to hear about your experiences, so please leave a comment below!